The Shanghai Major 2016 | Dota 2

During the Frankfurt Major finals, Valve proudly announced the next big Dota 2 Tournament: The Shanghai Major. After fall comes winter, so now the best teams will have another opportunity to take a chunk from the $3,000,000 prize pool. Things will definitely be different compared to the first Major. Since then, the Meta has changed and teams that were forgotten are becoming relevant once more. Alliance is now in what seems like an unstoppable winning streak and are becoming one of the favorite teams that will compete in Shanghai. Still, there’s a lot of stuff that can happen. The competing teams are still figuring out this new patch and it’s probable that they’re saving some strategies for this Major. There’s a mix of excitement and nostalgia as this Major approaches; it feels like Ti3 once again, and the main concern teams are experimenting is figuring out how to beat Alliance before it’s too late. Combine this with having to also worry about teams like OG, LGD Gaming, EG, Secret, EHOME and VG and you have one of the toughest championships that we’ve ever seen in Dota 2.

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Invited Teams:

Of the 16 teams, 8 earned a direct invite to the event based on their performance in the latest Valve tournaments and also other major championships around the world. They invited the winners of The International 2015, the Frankfurt Major and WCA among others. While Valve normally invites team to the International according to a fixed amount of spots per region, they just chose the 8 best teams in the competitive scene -independently of their region- for this Major. The following teams will go directly to the Main Event:

OG

Evil Genius

Team Secret

EHOME

CDEC

Vici Gaming

Virtus.Pro

Alliance

Qualifiers for the Shanghai Major:

Just like the Frankfurt Major, there will be 2 Qualifiers:

The Open Qualifiers were held from the 3rd to the 6th of January 2016. Two amateur teams from each region had the opportunity to qualify for their respective Regional Qualifier. To determine the qualified teams, each region featured two Open Qualifiers to give the teams more chance to go to the Major. Even though these qualifiers were intended for amateurs, a lot of experienced Dota 2 pros with new teams also competed. Some of the winner squads of these qualifiers were formed by players known in the scene, like ixmike88, Faith and Pajkatt. In the end, the following teams won a spot in the Main Qualifiers:

The Regional Qualifiers -or Main Qualifiers– took place from January 7 to the 10th. These qualifiers combined a round robin format and a double-elimination bracket. First, each region was divided into two groups for the round robin. The top two teams from each group went to a double elimination bracket where the two best earned a spot for the Shanghai Major. Sadly, not a single team from the Open Qualifiers was able to qualify to the Shanghai Major like it happened in the Frankfurt Major with Team Unknown. Some of the teams that won these qualifiers, like Liquid and LGD Gaming, showed a level much superior to the rest of the teams competing, so it’s probable that we’ll see them getting direct invites more frequently for the upcoming tournaments. In the end, these were the results:

Group Stage:

The Group Stage will start on the 25th of February 2016. This stage exists to determine the starting bracket of each team for the double-elimination bracket at the Main Event in March. Teams will be divided into four groups where the top two of each group will go to the Upper Bracket and the rest to the Lower Bracket. >> Read more about the Shanghai Group Stage with group standings and match results